Business consultancy links up to provide free advice for budding ventures

High-growth businesses consultancy, CRSI, has partnered with Enterprise City to design, build, develop and grow high-performing teams in each of the Exchange business support programme companies.

Enterprise City is a tech, media and cultural cluster in the heart of Manchester city centre, created by property giant Allied London, which aims to attract hundreds of businesses to base their headquarters there.

Exchange is a pioneering scheme that provides support for tech, media and digital start-up and scale-up companies within Enterprise City to access the tools and infrastructure they need to succeed.

It will come online from this Summer and will be based in state-of-the-art new workspace at the Bonded Warehouse, in Manchester’s Enterprise City development.

Leeds-based CRSI, which creates elite teams for ambitious businesses, will share and host a series of exclusive sessions from its extensive portfolio of methodologies and toolkits, which have been designed specifically to accelerate the growth of early stage businesses.

The service is free to all 23 members and businesses on the Exchange programme.

CRSI will support each of the businesses, giving guidance and consultancy on topics including employee engagement, organisational design for growth, how to build and retain high performing teams, personal development, exceptional management, wellbeing at work and building a board of directors.

Support will be tailored specifically for each tech, digital and media company’s needs, and will be delivered via fully interactive workshops and one-on-one advice clinics, during the six–12 month programme.

Tanya Grady, head of partnerships at Enterprise City, said: “CRSI will provide guidance on a vital part of business for early stage start-ups – their people.

“There is so much talk about people and culture within an early stage tech business, yet these are things which are carefully considered and nurtured rather than just happening by chance.

“Partnering with CRSI enables each of our successful Exchange businesses to receive tailored support to design and develop a high-performing team, which can be scaled as the business grows during its time in the programme and wider Enterprise City cluster.”

Gordon Bateman, chief executive at CRSI, said: “A business is the sum of its people, especially at start-up stage when each person and their performance is pivotal to the business’s successes.

“Therefore, our role is to guide start-ups through the process of designing, building and developing an elite team, capable of being an industry leader, as it scales and raises investment.

“Through our coaching and toolkits, we will equip the Exchange members with the knowledge to build a business that is capable of high-growth, and will be around for years to come, as the Enterprise City cluster develops and becomes the headquarters of these global firms.”

CRSI has more than 28 years’ experience developing high-performance teams, working exclusively with early-stage, high-growth businesses in the tech industry and beyond. It has worked with more than 700 companies in a range of science and technology sectors.

It is also founder of Investor Ladder, one of the UK’s most successful investor networks.

Its invite-only membership includes a network of angels through to VC, private equity, investment banks and corporate venture, in the science and technology sectors.

Investor Ladder holds regular events to bring the UK’s most active investors to the North of England, in an effort to help build and scale the region’s most exciting businesses.

CRSI will join Microsoft Advertising, Tech Nation and RSM as partners of the Exchange scheme at Enterprise City.

The businesses will combine to build on Manchester’s status as Europe’s fastest-growing major tech city, and support Exchange members in their journeys to become the UK’s next biggest tech start-ups.